SO no sooner do Newcastle United bid a temporary, tearless farewell to a thug of their own than they invite an army of them to cross the border.

If Rangers had been able to hit Toon on August 6, I’d have given Joey Barton community service — cleaning up after them.

It’s a fate surely worse than jail.

As it is, Celtic’s surprise title triumph means Walter Smith’s anti-footballers will be otherwise engaged — by the Champions League qualifying round — in the first week of August.

I think the phrase is “phew”.

I can understand the Magpies having pound signs in their eyes when mention was first made of getting the ‘Gers down.

But they were clearly blind to the history of Rangers’ excursions to England, not least the havoc wreaked by their followers on Tyneside in 1969.

The slashing of several Sunderland supporters ahead of Gary Bennett’s testimonial at Roker Park in 1993 also springs to mind.

To cock a deaf ear to the uproar caused in Manchester barely a week ago though? That’s some effort on Newcastle’s part.

Let’s get this straight . . . Manchester United fans were denied the chance to watch the Champions League final on big screens — and would have been denied a victory parade — in their own city centre because of the Rangers’ rampage through its streets.

Yet Newcastle were still more than happy to welcome the Glaswegian hordes to Tyneside? On a Wednesday night?

That suggests, at best, a naivety similar to that which first led United to Barton’s door.

For it’s clear that both he and Rangers’ lunatic fringe are incorrigible. (In the unlikely event you’re reading this Joey, that means you’re beyond help).

Inevitably, certain national newspapers have mounted their hobby horse — their hobby being to knock Newcastle — and demanded Barton be sacked.

But, as pointed out by one of our Prize Post correspondents this week, other clubs have stood by footballers convicted of more serious crimes.

There’s also the fact that Lee Bowyer got away with committing what looked to many people like assault on the pitch at St James’s Park.

And then there’s the argument that the Magpies knew exactly what they were getting when they bought Barton, pictured left.

The saddest thing, though, is that Newcastle were so wrong about Barton the footballer, if not Barton the man, that few on Tyneside care too much whether he stays or goes.